Hi,

I've also been offered a Quota studentship and my form was sent off a couple of weeks ago. I e-mailed the ESRC a few days ago to ask about timings etc. and they said they will send through the confirmations to the host university early in August.

It'll be so nice to finally get everything sorted in black and white. I was a bit paranoid about the whole procedure but my university has reassured me that the decision to nominate a student is entirely theirs and the ESRC are simply just making sure you fit the basic criteria.

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It's difficult to predict. ESRC/AHRC funding would be more 'politically acceptable' to cut, but then again medicine/science/tech funding costs much, much more to fund - so if they wanted to make serious cuts they would potentially look at this areas.

I just hope they leave ALL research funding alone and b?*&%$ off.

That is what I was thinking. Also, it seems that Vince Cable's speech has been leaked to the media - both the Independent and the Telegraph are reporting that Cable will announce that research funding will be protected.

Dear all,

I have recently been offered a 1+3 ESRC-funded studentship to start in September and my application has just been sent off to the ESRC to be confirmed. I am, however, pretty anxious about the possibility of Government cuts to research council funding. All the noises emanating from the Government and media suggest that the science budget at the Department for BIS is ripe for cuts. Has anyone heard similar things? The spending review from the Government is not due out until October so I am fairly confident that funding for my first year will not be affected, but am nervous that the Government might cut PhD funding from the next year. Is anybody else concerned?

Daniel